The subject matter disclosed herein relates to brazed components and methods and, more specifically, to brazed components and methods with fiber reinforcement layers.
A wide variety of industry components may undergo a braze operation to add new material, modify existing material, modify the shape of a component, join multiple components together, or otherwise alter the original component. The braze operation may general comprise heating a filler metal above its melting temperature (i.e., above its liquidus temperature) while disposed on a base substrate (i.e., the original component) and subsequently cool the materials to join the filler metal and the base substrate together.
Various turbine components may, for example, undergo one or more braze cycles during original manufacture or modification pre or post utilization in a turbine. Some particular turbine components may also possess very high strength, toughness and/or other physical properties to facilitate sustained operation. Turbine components such as buckets (blades), nozzles (vanes), and other hot gas path components and combustions components of industrial and aircraft gas turbine engines may be formed of nickel, cobalt or iron-base superalloys with suitable mechanical and environmental properties.
In even some instances, because the efficiency of a turbomachine can be at least partially dependent on its operating temperatures, there may be a demand for components such as turbine buckets and nozzles to be capable of withstanding increasingly higher temperatures. As the maximum local temperature of a superalloy component approaches the melting temperature of the superalloy, forced air cooling may become necessary. For this reason, airfoils of gas turbine buckets and nozzles may include complex cooling schemes in which air, typically bleed air, is forced through internal cooling passages within the airfoil and then discharged through cooling holes at the airfoil surface to transfer heat from the component. Cooling holes can also be configured so that cooling air serves to film cool the surrounding surface of the component.
Components, including turbine components, that have undergone a braze cycle may thereby be reshaped, joined or otherwise modified into a suitable configuration. However, the brazed area may still be required to satisfy the same mechanical and environmental properties that the original substrate possessed. While brazing can incorporate a variety of material combinations, braze joints may generally be designed for shear loading applications. However, some components, including turbine components, that are potential candidates for braze modification may be subject to additional or alternative forces such as high tensile stress.
Accordingly, alternative fiber reinforced brazed components and methods would be welcome in the art.